Tissue sample processing in immunohistochemical (IHC) applications and in other chemical and biological analyses, such as in-situ hybridization, special staining and cytology, may require one or more processing sequences or protocols as part of an analysis of one or more samples. The sample processing sequences or protocols may be defined by the individual or organization requesting an analysis, such as a pathologist or histologist of a hospital, or may be defined by dictates of a particular analysis to be performed, e.g. standardized protocols defined by an organization.
In preparation for sample analysis, a biological sample may be acquired by known sample acquisition techniques and may comprise tissues which in some applications may even be one or more isolated cells. The tissue sample may be accommodated on a sample carrier such as a slide or perhaps a microscope slide.
For example, immunologic applications may require processing sequences or protocols that comprise steps such as deparaffinisation, target retrieval, and staining. Previously, in some applications, these steps may have been performed manually, potentially resulting in a time consuming protocol and necessitating personnel to be actively involved in sample processing. In particular relating to the staining process, various devices for automated staining of tissue slides are known, as attempts have been made to automate sample processing to address the need for expedient sample processing and less manually burdensome operation.
Aspects of the present invention may be especially applicable to sample processing having one or a plurality of processing steps to be performed on one, a portion, or an entirety of samples, such protocols identified in some instances by the individual carriers presenting the samples. Aspects of the present invention may be especially applicable to immunohistochemistry (IHC) techniques, as well as in-situ hybridization (ISH) and fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH), especially techniques incorporating the staining of samples.
Embodiments of the invention may further relate to automated control systems for sample processing. Embodiments may also be directed to data acquisition, data maintenance, data retrieval for sample processing, especially information sharing of processing protocol and processing status, such as for individual samples or multiple batch processing, sample diagnostic features, and real-time or adaptive capabilities for multiple batch processing.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,091 discloses an apparatus for automatic tissue staining where microscope slides are arranged in a number of rows and reagent vials are stored in a section next to this slide section. A robotic head picks up a predetermined amount of reagent from a bottle and deposits this amount of reagent on a predetermined slide and blows the liquid off the slides according to a control program. This program is run on a computer that is coupled to the staining apparatus. The apparatus is loaded with a number of slides, and each slide and its position is registered in the computer and a staining sequence is selected. The program also receives data relating to the reagents and their position in the reagent section. On the basis of these slide and reagent position data, the program calculates a staining run and controls the robotic motion in the apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,352,861 discloses a carousel-type automatic staining apparatus in which the slides are arranged on a rotatable carousel slide support and the reagents are similarly arranged on a rotatably carousel reagent support above the slide support. A particular slide is then rotated to a delivery zone and a particular reagent vial is also rotated to this position and reagent is dispensed onto the slide. The slides and the reagent bottles are provided with bar codes and associated bar code readers are provided to identify the slides and the reagents respectively. A blowing zone and an identifying zone are also provided at the periphery of the slide carousel. The slide bar codes identify the slide samples and their particular immunohistochemical processes required for the particular samples. A reagent bar code reader is positioned to scan the reagent bar codes on the reagent bottles. The scanned information from the slide bar code reader and the reagent bar code reader is fed into a computer and correlated with the indexed position of the slide and the reagent carousel, respectively. This information is used to rotate the slide carousel and the reagent carousel to place the correct reagent bottle in the dispense zone for each slide treatment step for each slide.
A drawback of the automated staining apparatus described in '091 is that the position of each of the tissue slides and each of the reagent vials in the slide section and in the reagent section, respectively, must be entered manually into the computer, since the control program cannot check the location of the particular slides and reagent vials. This involves the risk that a misplaced slide is treated with the wrong staining protocol and makes the apparatus very inflexible in use.
Although the '861 patent uses a bar code identification of the slides and reagents, this carousel-type apparatus is time consuming in running the staining protocols, since this involves rotating the carousels with the entire reagent inventory and the slide carousel with all the slides for each step in a protocol. These rotations are time consuming and make this type of apparatus unsuitable for running of larger numbers of slides. Moreover, the bar codes can only carry a small amount of data, typically simply an identification code, which means that the control computer must be provided with corresponding data associated with the identification codes.